Martin Harris

Martin Harris (18 May 1783-10 July 1875) was an LDS Church apostle from 1830 to 1837 and the man who financially guaranteed the first printing of the Book of Mormon. He worked as Joseph Smith's scribe, and he lost the first 116 pages of the Book while attempting to prove its authenticity to his doubtful wife.

Biography
Martin Harris was born in Easton, New York in 1783, and he served in the militia during the War of 1812. He lived in Palmyra until 1831, and he was called a visionary fanatic by the local Presbyterian minister. Harris was an early convert to Mormonism due to his interactions with Joseph Smith, and he served as his scribe, writing down Smith's translations of the golden plates and compiling the Book of Mormon. He later asked Smith if he could bring the first 116 pages home to his wife to prove their authenticity, but his wife decided to hide them to see if Smith could translate the same plates again. Instead of translating the plates again, Smith decided to skip over the plates of Lehi and add Lehi's story to Nephi's story, an incident which disproved the legitimacy of Smith's ability to translate the plates. Nevertheless, Harris continued to support Smith financially, and he broke with Smith in 1837 over the failure of the Kirtland Safety Society bank, calling Smith a fraud. He later claimed that he had only seen the plates only in vision or imagination, and he influenced five influential church members, including three apostles, to leave the fradulent LDS Church. In 1870, he moved to the Utah Territory and was rebaptized, and he died in 1875.